Scrollbars are user interface tools that allow users to navigate over data that is presented in a sequential manner. In operation, a slider of a scrollbar moves in proportion to the position in a file. For example, media players for audio or video have a scrollbar with a slider which, when it is at the left-end of the bar indicates that the player is playing the beginning of the file, when at the right-end indicates that the player is playing the end of the file, and when somewhere in between indicating that the player is playing that portion of the data which is somewhere in between as indicated by the position of the slider. The user can move the slider to access the data at desired points in the presentation. Any Graphical User Interface (GUI) that presents information in a window is capable of utilizing scrollbars, such as word processing programs, spreadsheets, databases, graphical presentation programs, audio players, and video players.
Increasingly, audio and video players are being used in a graphical user interface setting, such as in a computer or web-TV. Although such audio and video players are becoming standard with the increased use of DVD and CD technology, the resolution tuning available to such players fail to allow fine resolution sequential data control. As an example, a scrollbar in a media player may be 4 inches long and represent 2 hours of video. Manipulation of a slider to locate fine temporal positions in the video becomes very difficult for a user. Slight movement of the slider can translate to a jump of several minutes of video. Often the user desires finer control of the seek function, but such control has heretofore not been available. What is needed is a graphical user interface that displays a coarse control scrollbar to provide a user with coarse resolution sequential data control and a magnified view scrollbar to provide the user with fine resolution sequential data control.